Snatched

by Pamela Burford

  “Yeah, just lost a—” He cut himself off and started down the ladder. “Got something in my eye.”

  “I’ll take a look when we get into the house.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Keith stepped off the bottom rung and hurried toward the back door.

  Will followed him into the kitchen, where Gabby sat reading French Elle and digging into a bag of Ched’r Wheelz With X-treme Cheeze. “Did it work?” she asked.

  “Yep, thanks to the cuz here.” Will nodded toward Keith. “I wouldn’t have had a clue where to begin.”

  Keith kept his face averted even as Gabby lavished flirtatious praise on him.

  “He got something in his eye,” Will said.

  She leapt up from her chair. “I will look.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Keith waved her off, shielding his eyes with a hand.

  “It could be a piece of the roof,” she said, cutting him off as he tried to scoot past her. “Let me—”

  “I said it’s nothing!” He shoved Gabby away and bolted from the room.

  Chapter 23

  “HONEY, I’M HOME!”

  Fergus’s voice boomed through the cottage, a peach-colored nugget of Bermudan real estate he’d borrowed from a “mate” who was spending a couple of weeks in London. Judith had moved in with him three days ago, after the farmers market and their detour to the secluded cove. They were no less secluded here in this former gardener’s cottage on eight acres of Bermuda’s east end. The one-bedroom house sat tucked amid concealing trees, with a private beach and a spectacular view of the Atlantic.

  Judith had returned to the hotel on Saturday, explained the situation to Roger—who took the news with his usual sangfroid, damn his civilized hide—and settled into prime waterfront domesticity with her big Irishman. Everything was perfect. Well, except for one irksome detail, and she was about to remedy that situation.

  Fergus was—who suspected?—a gentleman. He’d given her the king-size bed and bunked down the past three nights on the pullout in the living room. He had this crazy idea that once they did the deed, the fragile accord they’d established would collapse like a bad soufflé. They were going to become lovers, he’d told her, it was inevitable. But first they needed to cement their relationship.

  Fergus Dowd had to be the most touchy-feely spy who ever lived. Or IRA agent or gangster or whatever he was. Judith doubted she’d ever get a straight answer on that one.

  And that was what really turned her on, she had to admit. The not knowing. Her imagination worked overtime to fill in the blanks, and her libido wasn’t far behind. Judith had had this unwholesome thing for rebels ever since little Dickie Schneck, lunch-money extortionist and graffitist extraordinaire, had deftly unhooked her training bra right through her parochial-school jumper and starched white shirt. Sure, she’d managed to suppress that side of her nature for over half her life, to go cold turkey like a junkie, but she could no longer delude herself. Her brother was right. At heart she was a wild girl who craved wild men.

  What would it hurt to indulge herself with a prime example of the breed like Fergus Dowd? Just for a few days before returning to her good works and her book club and her prizewinning roses.

  And Roger. The good-natured schlub would take her back with no hard feelings, just for the asking. She had no doubts on that score.

  No. No more Roger. No more Rogers or Donalds. Judith had had her fill of safe, respectable M.D.s. She’d rather spend the rest of her life in celibate isolation than settle for decades of soul-sapping boredom with Dr. de Rigueur.

  As for Fergus’s stated desire for an honest-to-God, hearts-and-flowers relationship, well, that had even less chance of happening. The junkie analogy wasn’t far off. Bad boys were like heroin: incomparable for a quick high, disastrous for a long-term commitment. And that went double for this particular bad boy, who, though far from the worst example of the breed, happened to be best buds with her brother.

  Which brought her back to that quick high. She needed her fix, and she needed it now.

  Even from the backyard she could hear him moving around the kitchen, cupboard doors slamming, the contents of the refrigerator rattling as he put away the items he’d just purchased at the local market. She tossed aside the New Yorker she’d been perusing with half her brain, rolled out of the big hammock slung between a pair of towering palms, and strolled across the lawn and deck to the back door.

  She wore only Fergus’s soft ivory guayabera shirt, minimally buttoned and less than opaque. Her skin had begun to bronze during the past couple of days of less-than-fanatical sun protection, and she had to admit her thighs looked damn good below the hem of the shirt. She moved silently on bare feet, sneaking up behind Fergus in the kitchen just as he started to call out, “Did you go for a sw—” He broke off with a startled laugh as she slid her hands around his waist. He seized her wrists and hauled her into his arms.

  Judith had never been kissed until Fergus. Oh, plenty of men had gone through the motions, of course, but none of them, not a blessed one, had known how to do it. She hadn’t realized it then. She did now. The past three days had been enlightening, to put it mildly.

  Soft, deep, endless kisses that made her head swim. Hard, possessive, take-no-prisoners kisses that tugged at her innards in a most agreeable way. Kisses as whispery-soft as a butterfly alighting on her lips, her eyes, her throat. The butterfly seemed to touch down other places as well—she could swear she felt it flitter over her body—but in fact, Fergus’s talented mouth never strayed below her collarbone.

  He was voracious now, they both were, their hunger feeding off each other. His hand slid down her back, over her bottom—

  He made a little sound, a murmur of surprise. Judith was on tiptoes, her arms around his neck. The hem of the borrowed shirt had ridden up. And up. He broke off the kiss and looked at what she was wearing—and more to the point, not wearing—as his long fingers fondled the newly exposed lower slope of her bottom. They were both breathing hard.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I believe they call it an ambush.” She flicked her last few buttons free and let the shirt drop.

  “Lass . . .” His gaze never wavered from her body, even as he shook his head.

  “You can ‘lass’ me all you want. It won’t do you a bit of good.” She’d studied her options, the various modes of seduction at her disposal, and in the end rejected them all. Subtlety was not going to work with this man. She needed to jump him before he had a chance to rally his defenses. A lightning strike.

  She managed to pull his T-shirt over his head, but he grabbed her wrist when she went for the fly of his cargo shorts. “I don’t think this is a good idea, la— Judith.”

  “Really?” Her free hand explored an erection of imposing proportions. “Didn’t your mama teach you never to lie?”

  He gripped her hips as if trying to decide whether to push her away or pull her close. “Wait . . .” he groaned. “We need to talk first.”

  “Okay, let’s talk.” She shoved him against the counter and unzipped the shorts. “Do you like being on top or bottom?”

  Within seconds she had him as bare as she, at which point Fergus muttered something in Gaelic and let his hands and mouth stray to those places he’d ignored for too damn long. Judith felt cold Formica at her hip; the two of them had somehow gotten turned around. She braced her palms behind her, boosted her fanny onto the counter, and locked her strong legs around his waist. Thank heaven for Pilates.

  “I’m serious, darlin’.” Fergus made one last valiant effort, holding himself stiffly away even as her thighs tightened inexorably. “There’s something we must discuss. Then after, if you still want to—” He broke off with a full-throated groan as Judith grabbed a piece of prime Irish real estate and merged it with her personal portfolio. She cried out, the shock of pleasure so acute it rode the knife edge of pain.

  This was what she’d been waiting for, she thought dully. All those years with her gentle, dutiful
Donald. All those Saturday-night fumblings under 1,200-count percale, in the half-hour break between the local Long Island news and Great Performances on PBS. And all that time, this astonishing man had been living in her brother’s basement. Hiding in plain sight as it were.

  Fergus planted his feet and lifted her off the counter. They made their way through the small house to the sliding glass door in back, with side excursions to sofa, dining chair, window seat, floor pillow, and mirrored coffee table, ending up on the hammock in a postcoital tangle of sweaty limbs.

  Fergus mumbled, “If you choose this moment to take up Demon Tobacco again, I’ll pitch you into the ocean.”

  Judith did crave a cigarette, but not as much as she craved this man’s arms around her, his chest hairs tickling her cheek. Groggily she lifted her head and offered a teasing smile. “Is this the part where I ask what you’re thinking?”

  “Go ahead and ask. I’ll tell you.”

  “I thought men hated that—all those female questions. ‘What are you thinking?’ ‘Can’t we just be friends?’ ‘Does this hammock make me look fat?’”

  He gazed down the length of her naked body, nestled so intimately against his. No use wishing he could have seen her when she was young and perky. She said, “Don’t answer that last one.”

  He stroked her side. “You’re more beautiful than I imagined. And I have a healthy imagination.”

  “And a healthy talent for Irish bullshit.” Which was fine with Judith. She’d take a bit of blarney over the unvarnished truth any day, at least where her aging body was concerned.

  “As for your second question,” he said, “you and I have never been just friends. I’ve wanted you since the day Will introduced us.”

  “Donald and I had just gotten married,” Judith recalled.

  “It was lousy timing in more ways than one,” he said. “I was the last man you’d have taken up with back then.”

  “How do you do that?” She raised her head. “Always know what I’m thinking?”

  He shrugged. “A byproduct of my former profession.”

  There it was again, that buzz of excitement. The merest offhand mention of the mysterious “former profession” and Judith felt the hands of the clock spinning in reverse, felt herself turning back into some kind of giddy groupie.

  “Why do you even bring it up?” She dropped her head to his chest again. “You’re never going to tell me what you used to do for a living.”

  “Now, where’d you get that idea?”

  “Oh, please.” Idly she stroked her hand down his chest and over the sinewy contours of his hip. “It’s always been this big state secret. Torquemada couldn’t torture it out of you.”

  “You could try asking.”

  She snorted in derision. “I’ve been asking for, what is it, sixteen years? For all the good it’s done me. And I can’t get it out of my brother either.”

  “Will knows I’m private about my past,” Fergus said. “He respects that. What I’m saying is—” he gave her bottom a light pinch “—you could stop dancin’ around the subject and simply ask me. Maybe you don’t really want to know.”

  She thought about it. Had she ever asked directly? Could it be as simple as that? Was she ready for the truth, now that she and Fergus were actually involved?

  Where had that come from? They weren’t involved, they were just . . . friends with benefits? Like a couple of rootless college kids? Lord, how she detested that phrase, the whole idea behind it, but wasn’t that what she wanted from this man?

  Judith was glad her cheek rested on his chest and she wasn’t looking him in the eye. Her mouth was dry. “Okay,” she said as casually as she could manage, “I’m asking. What, precisely, did you used to do for a living, Fergus?”

  “I was a psychiatrist.”

  It took a moment for the unexpected word to register. Then her head whipped up so fast, she nearly strained her neck. “Bullshit!”

  “I still have my med-school diploma around somewhere,” he said. “I’ll dig it up when we get back home. Johns Hopkins. You should be impressed.”

  Judith realized her mouth was hanging open. “No no no no no no no.” She swung herself off the hammock and stood glaring at Fergus. “You were a spy,” she charged. “Some kind of . . . some kind of, of double agent. Or an enforcer for the Mob. Something . . .” She windmilled her arms, groping for words. “Something . . .”

  Fergus folded his hands under his head, crossed his feet at the ankles. “Something more irresistibly dangerous than an M.D.”

  “Oh my God,” she groaned. An M.D. Doctor Dowd.

  “You’re pale, lass.” Fergus patted the hammock and scooted over a bit, inviting her to snuggle with him again, but her feet were rooted in place.

  “Another M.D.” Her voice was small and breathy. “I fell for another M.D.”

  “We could discuss what that signifies.”

  “No.” Judith backed up a step, her palm held out as if to ward off Nosferatu. “We aren’t discussing anything. You deceived me.”

  Fergus spread his arms, all innocence. “That’s a slanderous accusation. When have I ever lied to you?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that. You knew what I imagined about your past. You could have disabused me anytime. A doctor.” She put her face in her hands. “Oh my God . . .”

  Fergus rose from the hammock and wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t have the will to shove him away.

  “This is what you wanted to talk about,” Judith muttered. “When I jumped you in there. You wanted to get this out in the open before we did the deed.”

  His chest expanded against her cheek; his heart thumped harder. She lifted her face. “Wasn’t that it?” He didn’t answer immediately. Rarely had she seen him look so serious. “Fergus? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She waited for him to say, Nothing, lass. Nothing’s wrong. He didn’t.

  “Is it Will?” Now her own heart was galloping. “Has something happened to Will? To Mick? Tom?”

  He shook his head. “They’re fine. I assume they are, anyway. I’ve heard nothing to indicate otherwise. It’s something else, Judith. Something I found out today.” He lifted a beach towel off the grass and swaddled her in it, as if sensing how vulnerable she suddenly felt. “I’ve been lookin’ into things. Like I told you I would.”

  Judith drew back from him. She pulled the towel more tightly around herself. “You’ve been snooping into my life.”

  “So I have. You need to know—”

  “No.” She spun away from him and stalked toward the house; her lungs felt starved for air. “I don’t want to hear any of this. You had no right, Fergus. No right.”

  “Hal Lynch is out of prison.”

  She stumbled to a stop at the sliding glass door. His statement hovered in the air, just beyond reach. Her ears heard the words, but her brain refused to process them.

  When she didn’t respond, he added, “He was released earlier this month.”

  She shook her head. “Hal’s in for life. What he did to his victim . . . They’ll never let him out.”

  “Good behavior.” Fergus’s voice sounded closer. He didn’t touch her, for which Judith was grateful; she felt as fragile as spun glass. “Lynch did twenty-five, the minimum, and made parole.”

  She continued to shake her head. “No . . . no . . .” This wasn’t supposed to happen. She turned to face him. “How did you find out his name? I never mentioned it.”

  “You let the first name slip. And that he was at Attica. I cross-referenced arrest records, inmate lists. I had a little help. A former patient of mine works for the Department of Corrections.”

  “There must be a lot of Hal Lynches out there. It’s not the same man.”

  “Harold Stuart Lynch.” Fergus spoke precisely, patiently. “Born in Buffalo on January the twelfth, fifty years ago. Oldest of four delinquents. Family moved to Babylon, Long Island, when he was six.”

  “Stop it.” Judith felt dizzy.

  “He shoul
d’ve done brilliantly in school with an IQ of one forty-five, but when you throw drugs and sociopathic inclinations into the mix, you’re not talking National Honor Society. Lynch dropped out of high school to play guitar full-time for a heavy-metal warm-up band called Puny Earthlings. At age twenty-five he was arrested for murder, following an anonymous tip, and held without bail—”

  “Stop it, Fergus.” She lurched through the house and into the bedroom, where she threw off the towel and dressed with desperate urgency, not bothering with underwear as she yanked on linen slacks and a striped blouse.

  “Judith, listen to me.” He tried to hold her, but she pushed him away and thrust her feet into beige leather slides.

  “I’ve heard enough.” She hauled her suitcase out of the closet and began tossing clothes and toiletries into it. “Take me to the airport. I’m going home.”

  “I’m not taking you anywhere until—”

  “Then I’ll call a taxi.”

  Fergus seized her upper arms, giving her a little shake as she tried to throw him off. “Stop and think about what you’re doing.”

  “He’ll come looking for me.”

  “I know. That’s why you’re going to stay put.”

  The flood of adrenaline evaporated as quickly as it had surged, leaving Judith depleted. She sank heavily on the edge of the bed and dropped her head into her hands. “How do you know?”

  “What’s that, lass?”

  “That Hal will come looking for me, now that he’s out. How do you know? Let me guess, Doctor Dowd.” She made no effort to soften her bitter tone. “You figured out I was the one who ratted out Hal on the drug murder. Or maybe that was something else I’d just ‘let slip’? I’m sure he’s known all along—he’s been waiting all these years to confront me.”

  “Sure, and that might make him pay you a little visit.” Fergus squatted in front of her; he took both her hands in his. “But my guess is, it’s about the two million dollars.”